Perfectly Normal

Perfectly Normal Chapter
Fifty

Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… *scurries to finish
EVERYTHING *  InterNutter, TC, Maxwell
Pink, Dracena and Greywolf are loverly and wondermous for
archiving/hosting.  style='font-family:Wingdings;mso-ascii-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-hansi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:
Wingdings'>J
ProPhile: *random gold stars *style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  Morgan: *gloke
* Readers/Reviewers: Okay, I’m out of town for a few days.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  I’ll be back Sunday afternoon so until then,
it’s this update and a little sidefling for you!style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  Happy Passover and Happy
Easter to those who celebrate.

            Kurt sat
back on his haunches, staring balefully at the Shi’ar
who seemed to be in some sort of trance. 
“You never left, did you?”

            “I have never
been here,” the androgynous figure replied. 
“I can not leave somewhere I have never been.”style='mso-spacerun:yes'>    They
tilted their head to one side and regarded Kurt in a manner that was
startlingly bird-like.  “But I am staying
here.  I cannot leave.”

            Kurt’s tail
coiled tightly around his wrist as if it were trying on it’s own to hold him
back.  He stood, letting the appendage
drop, and started pacing again.  “Come
ON, Logan, hurry up,” he muttered more to himself than anything, sliding a
sideways glare at the Shi’ar on the floor.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  “They’ll be down any minute,” he said for
what seemed like the 
tenth or twelfth time.  “w:st="on">Logan and Storm… they’re
in charge here. You have to leave.”  He
knew he sounded childish but he frankly did not care.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  He wanted this being gone, he wanted it to
take the gnawing nervousness in his belly, the feeling
of not being safe in his own home… he wanted all of it gone with the lone class=SpellE>Shi’ar in the Institute basement.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> 

            “Yes, I
know,” the alien being sighed, sounding more amused than resigned.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  “I have been informed…”style='mso-spacerun:yes'> 

            “Tell me
your name.  I can’t call you it…”style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  Kurt dropped back down to the floor, curling
his legs around into a complicated sitting position.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  He was not growing used to the class=SpellE>Shi’ar so much as growing tired of being afraid.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  Name your fear, his mother had always told
him, and it cannot hold you.  The class=SpellE>Shi’ar raised a pale brow and uttered a sound so utterly
alien and complicated that Kurt could only stare.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  “I think,” he said slowly after a moment’s
pause, “I’ll call you Wolfgang.”

            “Wolf…gang?”style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  The avian head tilt appeared again, and Kurt
almost expected to hear the clicking of a raptor-like beak.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  “What is that?”

            class=GramE>“Wolferl then, if Wolfgang is too
difficult.”  Something about
giving this creature the name of his mother’s doddering old uncle made Kurt
feel pounds lighter, as if something had been taken from his shoulders.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  “Wolferl, why are
you here? Where are the other Shi’ar?”

            “They are…”
he paused and spread his long fingered hands in a gesture that reminded Kurt of
water slipping through cracks in a rock, “they are not here.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  They are not coming here.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  Only I am here.”

            “Why?”

            “You are very
curious for a slave.”  The class=SpellE>Shi’ar—Wolferl, Kurt reminded
himself, suddenly looked annoyed, but not with anything outside of itself.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> 

            “You are
male, right? Wolferlclass=GramE>? I can call you Johanna if you’d rather…”

            “I am male,
by your standards,” Wolferl answered dryly.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  “ And I am here
because of what I did.  I am an
exile.  You know what exile means, don’t
you?” he patronized, rising to his full height. 
“It means I am left here to die.”

            Kurt was on
his feet in an instant.  “Exiled?
What?  Why?”style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  He did not, at that moment, care about this
being’s emotional welfare but rather cared about why he was at the Institute
and when he would be leaving.  class=SpellE>Wolferl the Shi’ar merely stared
at him, no discernable expression on his face. 
“Why did you come to the Institute?”

            “This is
where they left me,” he replied quietly. 
“They were kind to me, more kind than they ought to have been,
considering…”  He fell silent as the door
to the basement room opened and Logan
filled the space. 

            “This week
just keeps getting better and better, doesn’t it?” he groaned, stalking into
the room and stopping just before the Shi’ar male who
stood, eyes downcast, against the far wall. 

            “He’s been
exiled,” Kurt offered suddenly, feeling compelled to offer the alien’s side of
the story before Logan
did or said something awful.  “He’s alone
here…”

            “So he
says,” Logan
growled.  “I ain’t
gonna hurt you, bub.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  Just want some answers.”

            “I’m
calling him Wolferl,” Kurt added in a much quieter
tone, sounding suffused.  “He…he looks a
bit like mein Oncle class=SpellE>Wolferl….”

            w:st="on">Logan looked over his
shoulder at his young charge and sighed. 
“Go upstairs.  Help Storm corral
the younger students into the gym.  We’re
on damage control.”  He waited, watching,
until Kurt left.  He could tell the
teenager was loathe to leave but he also knew that
Kurt needed to.  He was not going to hurt
this Shi’ar but he did not want Kurt missing any more
meals and dwelling in his fearful depression. 
The room fairly stank of sad elf, Logan
thought with a hint of concern, shoving it aside as he returned his attention
to the Shi’ar. 
To Wolferl.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> 

            “I am
exiled to your planet,” he began without prompting.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  “I tried, and failed, to stop them so I am
exiled.”

            “Stop who?”
His voice was a dangerous timbre, rumbling from deep in his chest as his
fingers flexed and squeezed at his hips, trying to maintain calm.

            class=GramE>“The Shi’ar.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  Your world is a slave pit, overrun.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  It is time to cull the weak from the strong.”
He tilted his head and regarded Logan
with a curious gaze.  “You…I have seen
you before.  You were on the list to
survive, to join with the Shi’ar.”

            His mind
reeling, Logan
took a step back.  “What? What the hell
are you talking about?”

            “Rebels
rose within the ranks and tried to stop the Shi’ar
plans for destruction.  It seems,” he
paused, “we may be failing miserably.”